All About Costa Rican Food – Que Rico!

I’ve had a lot of friends and family ask me what Costa Rican food is like since it’s not very well known. A lot of people unconsciously group Costa Rican food in with Mexican food but it’s actually pretty different!

Unsurprisingly, Costa Rican food is quite delicious and it reflects their culture much so. As a country so close to the equator, their fruits and vegetables are resh and delicious, especially their fruits. When it comes to flavors, much of their food is quite simple using few spices and ingredients.

Read on to see more food delicious pictures and dishes of Costa Rica! Now you can finally find out exactly what Costa Rican food is.

Traditional Costa Rican Food

Gallo Pinto

The most Costa Rican food you can find anywhere in the country is gallo pinto. It means “spotted rooster” because the coloration supposedly makes it look like one. Basically, it is rice and beans (black or red) with some onion, chile dulce and cilantro.

typical Gallo pinto breakfast

In Costa Rica, they eat this dish hot for breakfast because back in the day, everyone used to work on the farms so they needed a lot of carbs and energy. They sometimes eat it for dinner and add extra ingredients like meat and vegetables to make it more filling for dinner. Yeison can eat this for every meal!

It may seem plain at first, being just rice and beans but it is actually full of flavor. The secret ingredient is the sauce, Salsa Lizano.

This little gem is the hallmark ingredient of all Costa Rican cuisine, they put this in everything! Alone, the sauce is a strong but not overbearing, a little sour and sweet.

Casado

The second most Costa Rican dish is the casado which means “married.” The story behind this dish is actually quite sweet.

Typical steak casado

Back in the day when the men would go to the fields to work, the wives would wrap rice, beans, meat, and plantains with a banana leaf to send with their husbands. The men set open their lunch out in the strong sun so by the time lunchtime rolled around, their meal was nice and hot with extra flavor from the banana leaf.

You can find all different kinds of casado: fish, pork, chicken or beef and each place has their own variation. Some may use platanos, some may use a cabbage salad, and so on but it is typically rice, beans, plantains, vegetables/salad and a meat.

Ceviche

Costa Rica has a huge fishing industry therefore fish is a big part of their diet as well. Another typical dish of Central and South America is ceviche, and each country has their own version.

Costa Rican ceviche

Ceviche is raw fish mixed with lime, cilantro, tomatoes and onions and if raw fish doesn’t sound appealing to you, don’t worry! The fish cooks in the lime and lemon juice. It bursts full of flavor due to the proportion of salt, lime and tangy vegetables and goes well with crackers as an appetizer. They commonly use parrotfish or snapper.

If you want to eat it the super Tico way, add ketchup and mayonnaise. They like a little bit of extra flavor with theirs!

Tacos

Another dish I love is their tacos. It’s not the typical taco you get in Mexican restaurants. It’s more like a huge taquito and they add shredded cabbage with lots of ketchup and mayonnaise on top of it. I got addicted when I tried one at a little soda near the La Paz waterfall, and trust me, it tastes better with all the repollo (cabbage) on it.

Costa Rican taco

Great snack for when you want to have a craving for something not-so-healthy!

Arroz Con Pollo/Marisco/Camarones

It’s incredibly common to see “arroz con” (rice with) something on the menu. Usually the most common is arroz con pollo – rice with chicken but you’ll most likely also see arroz con mariscos/camarones (seafood/shrimp).

Arroz con camarones (rice with shrimp)

This normally comes with fries and salad.

Soup

Soup is also another common item to see at sodas.

Seafood soup

You will usually see sopa de pollo (chicken soup), soda azteca (tomato and chicken), sopa de mariscos (seafood soup) or sopa negra (black bean soup). Olla de carne is another soup with a beef base.

Other Food

Costa Ricans have also incorporated many other types of food into their diet. They love fried chicken, burgers, fries and hot dogs which you’ll find at all bar restaurants.

Unfortunately their Asian food is really lacking and there are very very few restaurants that make authentic Asian food. I have found when it comes to diverse cuisine, Costa Rica is behind in this aspect. Don’t have high expectations for pizza unless you go to a place run by an Italian!

Beer

And of course, what goes better with burgers than beer? I personally don’t drink but Yeison definitely does. Ticos do love their cerveza! The main local beers are called Imperial and Pilsen.

Imperial beer

He loves Imperial because it has a lighter taste than Pilsen and if your mouth is thirsting for a different flavor other than beer, you have to order a natural juice. My favorite is pineapple or strawberry and they use 100% real fruit.

Craft beer is getting big in Costa Rica and you can find many different ones now.

Dessert

Now onto desserts (my favorite!) A popular dessert is tres leches, athree milk cake that they add fruit or coconut on top. But my top favorite dessert in Costa Rica is the chocolate cake made by a company called Spoon.

Spoon chocolate cakePops ice cream

And last but not least, helado…(Ice cream). Pops has the creamiest ice cream I have eaten and their galletas (cookies) flavor is my favorite.

Coffee

And of course, you can’t forget the coffee. World famous for their coffee, it has been their number one export for many many years. Their climate is perfect for growing many different types, near volcanoes, lakes and rivers which all give a unique flavor.

After trying Costa Rican coffee, I’m now officially a coffee addict. I honestly never used to like it much before but now, I have to drink a cup everyday at least!

If you weren’t convinced before that Costa Rica food is good, I bet you are now! There are many more traditional dishes but these are just a few of my favorites. I’ve eaten lots of different kinds of food and weird food (being Asian and all) but my taste buds were definitely exposed to something new when I tried Costa Rican cuisine.

Ticos do love to eat and they love trying different food so if you’re in Costa Rica, I highly suggest looking for a soda as they usually sell the most local type of food. Or, use Yeison’s philosophy: ask the cab drivers where the most delicious food is. Trust me, Costa Rican food is certainly worth trying and I guarantee that you will fall in love with it.

If you want to try something besides the typical pinto and casados, there are plenty more Costa Rican dishes you can try out.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Recently signed up to the updates, read the guide and have been glued to this site for a week; we’ll be booking our 1 week stay imminently, for end of April/early May, in the Coco/Hermosa area. My fiancée actually chose CR for our next vacation spot, so she’s been raring to go, but in doing research, many of the dishes you eat here are full of beans. My fiancée is quite allergic to all types of beans and grean peas.

She’s not anaphylactic, but we’ve had a bunch of nasty experiences. I read in one of your other comments that most places cook everything in the same pot (understandable), but do you think it would be possible to eat in CR consistently and not have any cross-contamination with beans, even in, say, an all-inclusive resort? I know you may not have the answer for that, but I’m thinking maybe you have a bit of an idea, compared to myself. Since ceviche is a staple food though, that makes me feel better; that wouldn’t be touching any bean dishes, correct? (I know, one is COOKED and the other is “cooked).” As well, would the arroz dishes contain any beans? How about the tacos? Just want to be as sure as possible. I know coming to a country where beans is a staple is bit dumb (on our part, given our situation), but we won’t be denied CR’s offerings!

Thanks for any help you can give and sorry for the essay of a post; it won’t be the last, but I’ll try to cut down! :$

Hi Christian! I’m glad to hear you found the blog useful and excited for you guys to visit! When it comes to the allergies, first I recommend to avoid eating at the local restaurants. If her allergy is very severe as in she doesn’t need to eat the beans for a reaction, just having some of the sauce or oil gives her a reaction then it’s best for her to avoid the local restaurants which are called “sodas” here. This is because they do use the same kitchenware and same utensils to ladle or spoons even though beans are usually cooked in a completely separate pot.

Additionally many of the workers don’t speak English that well so they may not understand (or really care) even if you tell them you have an allergy so it’s best to be as careful as possible to avoid any bad reactions. The touristic restaurants will have workers that speak English well and they will take more care. I think it may be best to avoid local restaurants and trying Costa Rican food in general except for a few dishes because so many of their dishes have beans. Some of the dishes that you can order that don’t have beans (in more touristic restaurants to avoid cross contamination) are ceviche, rice with chicken/shrimp/seafood (make sure still to ask that they do not use the same ladles or spoons) and patacones with guacamole or salsa, olla de carne soup which is beef stew. However do ask about the rice with chicken/shrimp dishes because I have noticed a couple times they came with green peas. Every restaurant makes it differently so make sure to ask. They don’t use green peas in many of their dishes though.

Their tacos (not like Mexican tacos) usually come with meat and cabbage so just make sure to ask and tell them no beans, this also goes for empanadas and enchiladas, they usually have potato or a meat.

You will also find a more diverse variety of restaurants in Costa Rica from Italian (lots of pizza and pasta here), Argentinian barbecue, seafood, burgers/American, etc.

She should definitely bring an epi-pen or two just in case because outside the big cities, the main hospital can be 30 minutes – 1 hour away. We are always careful about this with Yeison since he has a severe shrimp/shellfish allergy and it has happened to him a couple times where they used the same pot and the oil gave him a bad reaction.

Hi Laura, cilantro is a big part of their food but you can probably ask them to cook it without it (but local restaurants usually cook everything in one pan). Depending on the restaurant and recipe they use, cilantro is usually used in their beans but just as part of the flavor, not actual pieces of it.

I’m so excited to try all the delicious foods of Costa Rica (starting tomorrow- yay!). Between reading blogs and getting warnings from friends who have visited who tell me to stay away from water (if not bottled) and all ice. Stay away from fresh fruits, juices and seafood as well as to be wary of milk. Sounds like all I’m left with is cardboard! I don’t want to get sick, but I really want to enjoy the food of the region. Please offer your guidance.

Hi Meilani, in most places in Costa Rica, you can drink the tap water. But if you are very sensitive like I am, I always use filters (I don’t like buying bottled water since it’s a waste of plastic). And whoever told you to stay away from fresh fruit, juice and seafood is being overtly unnecessarily cautious. You can definitely have the fruit, juice and order seafood here! I recommend buying fruit from the supermarket and you can perfectly have seafood at restaurants. Whenever my friends and family visit we always take them to lots of different restaurants, local places and more “fancy places” and it’s been fine – even my friend who is super allergic to tons of stuff actually loved eating in Costa Rica since she could eat pretty much everything. I would just avoid buying fruit from the stands on the street and buying fruit and produce only at the supermarket.

I actually am Taiwanese so I never ate Americanized chinese food, only my mom’s home cooking 🙂 The Chinese food in CR is very different, it’s definitely more “Costa Ricanized” and run by Cantonese people but I did find a dim sum restaurant in San Jose that is the closest to authentic!

Lacking Asian variety probably yes, but us ticos ADORE our Chinese restaurants which are mostly run by Chinese people but it is completely different than what you are used to in the states. I moved to the states 3 years ago and anytime I visit Costa Rica I have to eat Chinese because we all miss it so much!

Hi Bonnie thanks! You described it perfectly – it definitely isn’t the highlight or the reason to visit Costa Rica, but it is something that’s simple to make at home. I included copos and chuchhills in this post: Costa Rican food

Sammi, thank-you! The foods in your other post are also yummy! I had a Churchill in Puntarenas a little while back but didn’t realize they had a special name. I honestly prefer the copos (granizados), without ice cream, which is surprising, as I am an ice cream fanatic! I just like the more simplistic version found all over the country (I am near Alajuela- the city- and my hubby knows just where the street vendors will be!)

Costa Rica used to be known principally as a producer of bananas and coffee. Even though coffee, bananas, pineapple, sugar, lumber, wood products and beef are still important exports, in recent times electronics, pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, software development, and ecotourism have become the prime industries in Costa Rica’s economy. High levels of education among its residents make the country an attractive investing location

Great job! The more Tico dishes I try, the more I like. My mother in law makes the best Tico Tacos, and my hubby’s ceviche is the bomb, as is my own gallo pinto, but I don’t think I have had a bad meal out yet, especially in regards to the local cuisine. I wouldn’t consider the food to be a reason to visit CR, but it is the kind of food I can make at home and eat every day! Oh, and then POPS!!! Seriously the best ice cream in my opinion! But you forgot about granizados!!!!